The Working World

After I was laid off from Canadian Trailmobile, I was looking for work again. The federal government provided an agency to help people out of work, find jobs. I went there and was sent on a wild goose chase looking for employment, from whom they recommended. I never did find a job through this department of the government. Any job I ever found was either through friends, or knocking door-to-door in the industrial part of Southeast Calgary. A friend of mines, father ran a grader for an outfit called Pioneer Paving and I got a job there as a laborer. They were building and paving roads up by the University of Calgary in the districts of Brentwood and Charleswood, I had a job on pit run it involved moving big rocks away from the curbs before the next layer of finer rock filler was brought in. We worked 12-hour days so I was paid overtime for four hours every day. After a couple of weeks, they put me on a new assignment, they drove me over to the Foothills Hospital that was just built and the parking lot was all paved. On the new asphalt there were circles sprayed with spray paint, and there was a small tractor with a compressor and jackhammer. Underneath the asphalt where these circles were painted, was a manhole cover and bell casting. My job was to drive the tractor over to where a circle was, and use the jackhammer to make a circle and uncover the manhole when this was done another laborer would help me lift the bell casting off of the 5 foot concrete sewer pipe, and shim the casting with 2 inch bricks, this would bring the manhole cover flush with the pavement. I liked this job as I was left alone to do it with no supervision. The job lasted about three weeks till the end of October, and the work was all done for that season. My last job was to drive the tractor back to Pioneer Paving's yard off of Blackfoot Trail on 46th Ave. S.E.